


Are You Watching Me?

by TimmyJaybird



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Suicide, drug overdose, finale continuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks after Hannibal left Will bloody and dying on his floor, he wonders if the man is watching him? Has he been there, the whole time, and would he stay- until the darkness leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You Watching Me?

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write something to get back into the groove, and this came out.  
> Inspired by Kelly Clarkson's "Irvine". If you haven't heard it go listen, think about Mizumono, and cry with me.  
> Mature warning because of all the death and causes of it. Just to be safe.

How much could he really see? It was a thought, a fleeting flutter of his mind’s wings, as Will lay on the floor of Hannibal’s home, clutching at his gut, bleeding out on his floor. Next to him, Abigail was limp, staring with those wide, blue eyes- seeing nothing despite her eyes being so _open_ -

And he could only wonder, how much any of them ever saw.

He tried to clutch tighter at his stomach, but his arm felt cold, foreign- detached and held yards away, and he was pulling on threads just to get his fingers to twitch. Will exhaled, and everything hurt for a second- than his breath was gone, and so was the pain. He slumped further down, wondered how far Hannibal had gone- how many steps he took, had he left the house? Had he heard the door? He couldn’t be sure- he couldn’t know if seconds or minutes or years had passed. He didn’t know when Abigail stopped twitching. He didn’t know how long he had clutched at his insides, trying to keep them inside the shell of his body.

He had wanted to see- and he saw, he was so sure, inside the man that had been his psychiatrist, his friend, could have been his lover- had forever been the Chesapeake Ripper. Had been the only one to really reach inside, to try to understand the curves and edges that were _him_. He wanted to know Hannibal Lecter as he had known no other-

And, as he exhaled and the pain flared, as he realized he could no longer feel his legs- he knew he had. No one would ever show him such intimacy, such raw truth, again. No one would open up so much so that they had to open _him_ up just to allow for the space for that knowledge. No one would ever be this honest again.

Will tipped his head back, heard Hannibal’s voice inside his skull, bouncing along the bone- _tip your head back and wade into the stream_. He smiled, the tiniest quirk of his lips, and he wanted to, if the stream was Hannibal’s conscious, if he was drowning inside everything the man felt and saw and thought.

Part of him simply wanted to _be_ Hannibal Lecter.

Will swallowed, wondered if Hannibal would ever know the cold he was feeling now. Somewhere, inside, buried beneath flesh and bone and blood, he thought Hannibal already did, knew a sort of biting cold that no one else did. He wanted to listen to Hannibal talk about it, fill the air with words that formed a picture formed a lifetime- formed the truth.

It was dark, and Will did not remember closing his eyes. They felt heavy, and he left them, deciding he would look _later_ , when Hannibal spoke, when the man brushed his shoulder, his arm, gave him a moment of contact that awoke him to reality. He would wait, and he hoped Hannibal would stay until the darkness had gone.

*

The sun was low, nearly gone in the sky. Hannibal could see it, from where he sat- where he had been sitting for hours now, simply staring. His tablet was ignored at his side, gone dark- the latest update on the _Chesapeake Ripper_ gone behind that sleeping black.

He tipped his head back, dug up the memory of how to breathe- but the air that was fresh come afternoon was stale now, nothing but dust and dead memories. He had told himself, when he walked away, when he left him lying on the floor, that he had planned for Will Graham to die- and Abigail Hobbs, Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom. All of them, wiped from his life, his conscious. So he could begin fresh, new to the light of the world.

Yet he had ignored, as long as he could, for weeks, news of his escape. He had thought, in his mind, that of all those he left bleeding and broken, Will would be the one to make it. He would be the one to survive, to pull through with gritted teeth and angry eyes, a fresh storm in them. He would live and hunt and Hannibal would enjoy a new game with him.

News that Alana lived, that had shocked him. Abigail’s death had now- and her death had been mourned, before it happened. Jack’s survival had been a shock as well- bitter sweet as Bella had passed while he lay in the hospital. Pity, yes-

But Will, _Will should have lived_.

Hannibal gripped at his chair, but he felt isolated, holed up in a dark, cramped room, the walls closing in. The sun gone, the air scarce- and this was his eternity, without Will. Without the one who had seen him, known him- betrayed him and yet, here he was, mourning and missing and loving.

Hannibal reached up, raked a hand over his face, back into his hair. A prt of him wondered if Will was there now, had always been there, watching. Waiting for Hannibal to finally see the truth, to know he had killed all that he had loved- all he would ever love again. He had a pension for destruction, for consumption- those he loved ended up buried inside him, dissipated in blood and bone and thought and left as nothing but ghosts to his memory. Mischa, in her sweetness, and then Will- in his glory.

In his agony.

Hannibal stood, wondered from the small room that looked out, towards the sunset- to the bathroom. He threw open his medicine cabinet, fumbled with bottles, opened and poured pills onto his waiting palm. He had never had trouble sleeping, not for a long time- but now, nights had been plagued with Will’s blood, with his eyes- dead and white and _true_ , and Hannibal was sure he should have known. His subconscious had told him- but he wanted to ignore, deny, fight it away until his chosen reality was the only truth that remained.

He had needed pills to force sleep, as Will’s face had become terrifying, in all it’s unknown truth.

Hannibal looked at them, then tossed them into his mouth, tilting his head back and swallowing. For good measure, he dumped more into his palm, repeating, then leaving the half empty bottle discarded in the sink. It was enough, enough to sleep endlessly, dream never and always, a mix of reality and fantasy. Enough to allow him to feel as Will had- cold, alone. Abandoned.

Hannibal moved from the bathroom, towards his bedroom- everything was swimming, slow and slower, and yet part of his brain screamed for dignity- to be in his bed, proper and in control, put together. He made it into the doorway of his bedroom, before his legs gave, and he found himself on the hard floor, cheek pressed to the cold, polished wood. He lay there, breathing, feeling separate from his body- a specter, spectator, as his world melted around him.

He was cold- skin growing like snow, and he recognized the feeling, fear creeping up into him. The cold had always bothered him, ever since childhood, and he wondered if it was endless. Was there a god- one responsible for all his precious church collapsings, that would curse him to an eternity of winter and ice inside old bruised flesh. Was there simply nothing- black and endless and a stop to all thought and existence.

Will Graham knew, and the ghost of Hannibal’s could have-would have lover kept his lips tightly shut. All he ever did was stare in Hannibal’s dreams. Hannibal wished he was there, then, in that moment. _Are you there, are you watching me_? Was Will enjoying this, Hannibal finally following in his footsteps.

Reality without the man was suddenly tasteless, pointless- and this, _this_ seemed a better alternative. He wanted Will to reach out, to take him, accept him then and there- to see that Hannibal was sorry over the end- never the journey, only the outcome.

Hannibal inhaled, got half a breath, and allowed it to be enough. His head was light, spinning, and he heard a voice inside it, whispering his name, over and over and over again, an endless mantra of desperation yet control. Calling him, beckoning and welcoming, into the blackness he found behind his eyelids.

Hannibal smiled to himself. That was all he wanted, then. Will welcoming him- it didn’t matter where, into what. He had invested his reality into the man, and there was nothing to his existence without him.

One more breath, and Hannibal’s eyes were closed. He wondered, again, if Will was there- watching him, waiting for him- if he was feeling what the man had weeks ago, when Hannibal left him lying on the floor.

Hannibal’s answer came in blackness, in cold and then a numb nothing, as the world stopped around him, as the clock inside his skull stopped ticking, and his body was filled with a true silence for the first time in his life.


End file.
